Your Current Obsession

[cortez the killer]

Can't get this out of my head.

[tinnitus photography]

I can.



Re-evaluating The Smiths as the greatest rock band ever. It happens every few years.

[cortez the killer]

[Duke Silver]

x2 That song, the album, and Greg Dulli's body of work in general.

[tinnitus photography]

x2 That song, the album, and Greg Dulli's body in general.

[Duke Silver]

[BiloxiParish]

Johnny Cash all of the American Recordings

[Smitty]

Crazy Horse.
Lydia Loveless.
Steve Earle.
Green on Red.
Danny & Dusty.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Lydia Loveless. I've gotten to where I don't even bother taking Boy Crazy and Somewhere Else out of the CD changer in my car. Runner up would have to be the Rock Steady comps on Trojan Records. I just can't stop listening.

[Iowan]

Lydia Loveless occupied that spot for awhile.

Dereconstructed is angling for for the spot.

[beantownbubba]

I don't always listen to the cd player in my car, but when I do, there's exactly one cd in it, and that's English Oceans. At this point I'd say that it's become pretty much of an obsession and it's still sounding mighty good.

[Smitty]

I don't always listen to the cd player in my car, but when I do, there's exactly one cd in it, and that's English Oceans. At this point I'd say that it's become pretty much of an obsession and it's still sounding mighty good.

That was me until I turned into Lydia Loveless's fanboy slut, now she's a constant fixture in my life.
My wife is probably getting tired of sharing me.

[beantownbubba]

My wife is probably getting tired of sharing me.

That's what you think. I'm guessing she's sending thankful emails to ms. lydia.

[mhc]

Sturgill Simpson

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Not me in the photo (taken at Grimey's in Nashville), though I'm enjoying rediscovering the first three albums again.

[Beebs]

Sam Baker

Ridiculous songwriter, incredible backstory. Look for an AOTW when I get a little deeper into his earlier records.

[joelle]

[bellevillemusic]

Connie Converse
Liam Hayes
Jessica Pratt

[bellevillemusic]

These recording are worth seeking out.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Sad-Lovely-Co ... e+converse

Key Tracks : How Sad, How Lovely - Roving Woman - One By One

Connie Converse: The mystery of the original singer-songwriter

Connie Converse was arguably the first modern singer-songwriter, writing and playing intimate songs on her acoustic guitar in the mid-1950s. But she remained virtually unknown and disappeared in 1974. Now, her talent is finally being recognized. In summer 1974, days after her 50th birthday, Connie Converse sent fond letters to family and close friends telling them she wanted to make a fresh start. Disillusioned with how her life had turned out, she packed her possessions into her Volkswagen Beetle and left her Michigan home. She has not been seen since. Twenty years earlier, Connie Converse was living in Greenwich Village, the New York district where, in the mid-1950s, beatniks and bohemians were carving out counterculture.

Converse made her only recordings in her apartment and in a friend's kitchen

She changed her name from Elizabeth to Connie after moving to New York. Converse was working for a printing firm, but had hopes of making it as a musician. In her apartment, she would write haunting, beautiful songs with a poetic honesty and melodic sophistication that set her apart from the other singers in Greenwich Village. With the folk scene still dominated by political and traditional songs at that time, the concept of the solo acoustic singer-songwriter had barely moved beyond Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger's dust-bowl balladry. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell were still in school.Converse was not the most gifted vocalist or guitar player, and her voice had an air of formality that befitted the age. Yet when she sang, it was with a depth, intimacy and eloquence that were rare for that era.She sang of loneliness, of promiscuity, of quarrelling lovers, of frequenting saloons in the afternoons. While some tunes had a more jaunty, fireside air, most carried an underlying sense of sadness.Despite her ambitions, she did not play conventional gigs and stood on the edge of Greenwich Village's musical coterie.In 1954, she recorded a set of songs in the kitchen of Gene Deitch, who had recorded Pete Seeger and John Lee Hooker in the 1940s.Deitch and her other friends tried to help her career, but to no avail.In 1961, the year Dylan moved to Greenwich Village, Converse turned her back on her music career and left New York for a job at the University of Michigan.Still unfulfilled, she fell into depression and heavy drinking.She would be 90 now."The more I thought about it, the songs were all about herself," says Deitch, now 90, who went on to become an Oscar-winning animator. "I think that's what makes the songs interesting. No matter what she was singing, it all had to do with sexual frustration and loneliness. "There's something about those songs that was extremely personal. In those days, this was something you never heard. "Nowadays, there are lots of women singers who you might call folk singers or personal song singers, who are doing pretty much the same thing as Connie did."But I think she was really the first."

Cult following
It seemed that Converse's songs were destined to be forgotten until Deitch's recordings were put out as an album by a small New York label in 2009. Since then, the legend of Connie Converse has slowly grown. "The music, considering when it was recorded, sounds eerily contemporary," says David Herman of Squirrel Thing Recordings, which released the album How Sad, How Lovely."Her voice is really compelling. Add to that the fact this was a woman writing singer-songwriter-style music in the mid-50s, before being a singer-songwriter was a thing, and before a female songwriter was something people were used to "And with the mystery of the disappearance, the whole thing leaves you with more questions than answers." The next step in her rediscovery comes on Wednesday when a 40-minute documentary by US film-maker Andrea Kannes receives its premiere at the Sensoria film and music festival in Sheffield as part of a Connie Converse tribute night staged by British singer Nat Johnson.

'Funny and sad'
Kannes has had access to the filing cabinet Converse left behind, complete with her home recordings, letters and journals. "It's almost like she wanted it to be found and looked through," Kannes says."What I found most fascinating was how funny she was in her writing. "Here was a person who struggled through her whole life to feel successful, and you can tell there's a great sadness with a lot of the things she did and the way she lived her life, but she was also incredibly funny. "You could tell that she was well liked and she had lots of friends. But there was still this wall between her and other people, where it didn't seem like she 100% connected with anybody." As well as being frustrated in her music career, Converse had a powerful intellect that also never quite found its calling.

'A genius'
At high school, she dominated the graduation prize-giving ceremony and won a prestigious college scholarship. But her parents were dismayed when she dropped out after two years and moved to New York, changing her name from Elizabeth and rejecting their strict teetotal, God-fearing upbringing.After giving up on music and leaving New York, Converse edited the Journal of Conflict Resolution. She was also a keen political activist and a talented cartoonist. Her brother Phil, writing in 2000, described her as "a genius and a polymath", adding: "I do not use the terms lightly."

She was also an enigma. The mystery of what became of her remains unsolved. Her family believe she took her own life, probably by driving into a lake or river.
But 60 years after she made those recordings in Greenwich Village, Connie Converse's voice is finally being heard.

[Beebs]

The title track of this album just happens to be the same length as my three year old's ride to pre-k and we jam to it about every day. His response is spastic air guitar and off time head bobbing while his six year old brother says "Not again Dad!" but then pretty accurately air drums the big changes and head bangs in time. I've never been prouder.




Elder - Dead Roots Stirring

Whether you think you're into heavy grooves or not the title track is so worth a listen.

[Iowan]

Chicks and cars and partying hard.

[Duke Silver]

[tinnitus photography]

The title track of this album just happens to be the same length as my three year old's ride to pre-k and we jam to it about every day. His response is spastic air guitar and off time head bobbing while his six year old brother says "Not again Dad!" but then pretty accurately air drums the big changes and head bangs in time. I've never been prouder.




Elder - Dead Roots Stirring

Whether you think you're into heavy grooves or not the title track is so worth a listen.

the best. Beebs, was Psycho the first time seeing Elder?

[Beebs]

the best. Beebs, was Psycho the first time seeing Elder?

Yep. It's tough to get to get Boston or NY with little kids at home. But I really look forward to seeing them again soon. Such a great, earnest energy.

I knew Lore note for note but hadn't really dug deep into Dead Roots yet. As they opened the Psycho set with it I realized that possibly their greatest track had slipped under my radar.

[LBRod]

Chicks and cars and partying hard.

Nobody wants to talk about distribution.

[Iowan]

Chicks and cars and partying hard.

Nobody wants to talk about distribution.

Say what you want about old Bocephus.

[Daddy_played_poker]

New Dexateens is getting quite a few spins around my house this week.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Presently on a Nada Surf kick. I remember "Popular" back in '97 and how it was all over the MTV but for whatever reason it never really grabbed me. Fast forward to '05 and I hear "Concrete Bed" on the XMU channel on XM satellite radio and that's the one that sets the hook. I immediately went out and grabbed The Weight Is A Gift, which I was head over heels for (and still am). I've come close to seeing them in concert at least a couple times since then but it never did work out. Finally, I managed to catch them at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro last week and was blown away. At that show I picked up Peaceful Ghosts (new live record recorded with an orchestra), You Know Who You Are (latest studio album) and North 6th Street, a comp of b-sides only available at shows that came out in '99. I love all of these but have found North 6th Street to be particularly revelatory as, in addition to a demo recording of "Popular", it rocks with a power pop/punk fury that I've never really picked up on from their other records. I'm also loving You Know Who You Are. It has to be my favorite of the albums they've released since The Weight Is A Gift, all good but not really in the same territory as Weight or Let Go. What's left for me to discover is more of the catalog pre-Let Go. I can't wait to dive in. As I've been sort of re-discovering Nada Surf lately, the song that continues to hit me hardest is "Your Legs Grow". It's one of those songs that takes me back to a specific place in time that conjures up fond memories that are also twinged with the bittersweet.

[chuckrh]

watching Cure concerts via periscope with fans from all over the world on the cure community forum. the quality has been amazing on some shows. every cure show is different & they rehearsed at least 90 songs for the tour. this lineup is really gelling nicely now & reeves gabrels has been stunning on guitar. definitely a wonderful choice when the band needed a new guitar player. always liked his work with bowie. hopefully there will be a new cure record soon with him on it. the 2 new songs that have shown up on the tour are excellent. 1, "never be the same" is an instant classic.

[tinnitus photography]

the best. Beebs, was Psycho the first time seeing Elder?

Yep. It's tough to get to get Boston or NY with little kids at home. But I really look forward to seeing them again soon. Such a great, earnest energy.

I knew Lore note for note but hadn't really dug deep into Dead Roots yet. As they opened the Psycho set with it I realized that possibly their greatest track had slipped under my radar.

Nick is back living in Germany again, so Elder shows over here will be a scarcer event. bummer. love those guys, and they are fun as hell to hang out w/ as well.